Open's golden days are gone

Charles Happell

Good old days: Jack Nicklaus wins the 'fifth major', the Australian Open, for a fifth time in 1976.

WHEN at the peak of his considerable powers, Jack Nicklaus chose in 1971 to forgo the season-ending US PGA Tour event in Las Vegas - which would decide who'd win that season's money-list title - and instead make the 13,000-kilometre trip to Tasmania to play in the Australian Open.

The national championship was being held for the first (and last) time at Royal Hobart Golf Club, ranked in the latest Golf Digest as the 100th best course in Australia.

Nicklaus shot rounds of 68, 65, 66 and 70 to beat Bruce Crampton and the rest of the field by eight shots and collect the first prize of $4320 - and his third Stonehaven Cup.

Back in Las Vegas, he'd left Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer to fight over his slender lead on the Tour money list at the Sahara International. Trevino won the event and, thanks to the $27,000 first prize, overhauled Nicklaus' earnings lead.

But that didn't seem to perturb the Golden Bear one bit. After collecting his winner's trophy at Royal Hobart, Nicklaus said: ''I'm still interested in being at the top of the money stakes, but only if it doesn't interfere with my competing in what I consider to be prestige events. I've won [the money title] three times so it's no longer a case of 'I've got to do it'. Besides, it's far more important to win a national title like this.''

Here was the game's greatest player, who earlier that year at the PGA Championship in Florida had won his ninth of what would become 18 majors, spurning an important week back home to compete in the Australian Open, playing at an obscure course where, if you hit out of bounds on the wrong hole, your nearest point of relief was an Antarctic ice floe. Nicklaus even referred to the event as golf's ''fifth major'', and his name adorned the Stonehaven Cup alongside those of Gary Player, Palmer and Gene Sarazen. What more significant imprimatur could there be for the national championship?

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The story is told to illustrate the esteem in which the Australian Open was once held, and just how far the championship has fallen from those heady days. What we will witness from next Thursday to Sunday at The Lakes in Sydney (the scene, incidentally, of Nicklaus' first Open victory, in 1964) is a pale and anaemic version of the event. Now, the ''fifth major'' reference is mentioned only in ironic terms. All senior golfing administrators can do is shake their head and wonder what the heck happened to their once-great tournament.

The answer is complex: sponsorship money has dried up, Golf Australia can't afford to pay appearance money to more than a couple of top-line players, our tournament dates invariably clash with more lucrative events overseas or even Q-schools, golf is not regarded as a sexy vehicle to promote products, Australia's golfers are by and large a fairly beige lot … and Greg Norman has retired.

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Australia has eight golfers ranked in the world top 100 but only one of them, the eventual winner Adam Scott, teed up at the Australian Masters at Kingston Heath a fortnight ago.

Apart from Justin Rose, an ageing Tom Watson and 14-year-old Chinese prodigy Guan Tianliang, the international representation at The Lakes will be thin, wafer thin.

Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, John Senden, Jason Day and most of the leading Australians will be there but, in terms of star power, the field is a shadow of what it would have been 20 or 30 years ago.

Emirates Airlines is the naming-rights sponsor but, in truth, it's a pretty minor major backer. Total prizemoney is $1.25 million, which is not to be sniffed at, but when you consider that the 1996 Australian Open offered a purse of $1 million, we haven't come very far in the past 16 years.

Next year, on the very same week the Australian Open will be played this month, South Africa will stage the Tournament of Hope, the latest World Golf Championships event. Its purse will be $8.5 million. Wonder if any of the big names will be brave enough to invoke the spirit of Nicklaus and turn their back on that pile of Krugerrands in favour of playing golf's ''fifth major''?